


it's not about lentils

by TheQueenInTheNorth



Series: lou does the kink bingo 2020 [27]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Elementary School, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23550538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenInTheNorth/pseuds/TheQueenInTheNorth
Summary: Sinara finds herself far more involved with a certain student's home life than she ought to be.
Relationships: Kasius/Sinara (Marvel)
Series: lou does the kink bingo 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591909
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4





	it's not about lentils

**Author's Note:**

> for the square 'elementary school au'

Sinara checked her papers even though she knew which parent would come see her next. The school did quarterly check-ins, a feature she found unnecessary in most cases but that was popular with the rich elite that made up most of the parents.

Deputy Headmistress May had joked that it made them feel absolved of having to keep up with their kids through the rest of the year; Sinara found that assertion shockingly accurate.

This was the first of the year so she at least had something to say about how the kids settled in but usually the meetings were more than dull.

For this student… well, she was curious to see just what was going on in little Amalia 'Mia' Hala's home. She was an outgoing, a little hyperactive child, that made friends fast and got into fights faster and spun tall tales with such conviction Sinara wasn’t sure what to believe.

Her father, Kasius, was right on time. Or at least she assumed that’s who the man knocking on the frame of her open door was. He was smiling at her, a little shyly. He was dressed to the nines, the way most of the parents were, and his keychain peaked out of his pocket. It was Mia’s latest craft project.

Sinara smiled back at him politely, a little less put on than it was with the other parents she’d seen so far.“Good afternoon. Come on in.”

“Good afternoon,”he said, walking over and shaking her proffered hand.“I’m Kasius Hala. And you must be Miss Nara, Mia goes on and on about you.”

There was glittering nail polish on some of his nails, and the surrounding skin. She had a feeling that Mia giving him manicures was not one of the little girl’s absurd stories, even if she had assumed that until now.

“Sinara Smith,”she replied, a small smirk stealing its way onto her face as he blushed.

“Right, of course.” He chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck as if it could make the spreading blush retreat.“Sorry, I’m too used to thinking of you as Miss Nara.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly fine.”

It was even a little sweet. At least one of her students had a parent at home who listened to her. The previous parent had brought along the nanny and stared at her phone for the most time; the father hadn’t even pretended to take the time to show up.

Sinara gestured to the chair across from her desk.“Please, have a seat.”

He did, looking at her expectantly. He was fidgeting a little and chewing on his lower lip.

“You’re not getting graded,”she pointed out, mainly in hopes of making him blush some more. It worked, and she quickly went on as if she hadn’t even noticed,“Neither is Mia, for that matter. But she is doing well with settling into the classroom structure and is very eager to learn.”

Kasius beamed at her, all proud parent, and she melted a little. No needling for a letter grade they just didn’t give the little ones, no condescending remark about how of course the child was doing well.

“She gets into fights more than I’d like but mostly verbal ones, so nothing we won’t get a handle on,”she said.

“What can I do about that on my end?”Kasius asked.

“Unless it gets worse, it’s probably just her trying to settle in a new environment,”she said.“You recently moved from what I gathered?”

_ I’m not on the farm anymore because Grammy Mama had to go and play bridge, _ Mia had told her. Whatever the hell a ‘grammy mama’ was. But with all the peepaws and meemaws around, it wasn’t that weird, Sinara supposed.

“Mia moved,”Kasius corrected.“Her grandmother couldn’t keep up and she’s gone into assisted living now, so Mia came to me.”

“Right.” The personal file had made no such clarification. It really made one wonder why they even bothered with the things.“Have you noticed Mia making up things at home?”

“Like playing pretend?”he asked, a little crinkle forming on the bridge of his nose.

Sinara tried to find a diplomatic answer and failed.“More like lying.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped and she suddenly felt like she’d just kicked a puppy into traffic.“Not that I’d noticed.”

“Okay,”she said and cleared her throat.“Well, it may just be at school? For example, she has mentioned her dad being in prison a few times and - well, you clearly aren’t?”

“Oh, no, I’m not that dad,”he said hastily.

Fuck. There had been no mention of another father in the paperwork. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Way to put her foot in her mouth…

“That’s my brother,”Kasius added.

Sinara blinked at him, slowly absorbing that statement.“Huh?”

“Faulnak’s in prison,”Kasius said.

That cleared up exactly nothing except the fact that ridiculous names were a family thing, apparently.

Kasius shook his head, clearly reading her expression right.“My brother got a woman pregnant, he didn’t take care of the baby, she barely took care of the baby, I never knew about the baby. Mia’s grandmother got custody but now she needed to go into assisted living. She reached out to my father, since Faulnak is in prison. Father told her to get lost. I took in Mia so she wouldn’t have to go into the system. I'm planning to adopt her.” He made a vague gesture, his nails sparkling in the fluorescent light.“And here we are.”

Sinara nodded, taking in that flood of information that was far more useful than her stupid file.

“So you’re Uncle Sius?”she asked. Perhaps not the most important point to clarify but it did make a little more sense of some of Mia’s stories.

“That’s me,”he said, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth.“Or Dad, or Kas. Or Uncle Daddy, most of the time. We’re still figuring it out.”

Sinara dug her fingernails into her palm to force down the sudden, unfamiliar, far too intense urge to say “Aww,” and instead made herself say,“It will take her a while to adjust fully but all things considered, I’d say she’s doing very well.“

“I’m glad. I’m just really scared to mess up,“he confessed.“I don’t think I could stand it if they took her away.“

Sinara found herself reaching across the desk and giving his hand a short, comforting squeeze. Before she had quite worked through the shock of just what the hell she was doing, she heard herself say,“If you have any question or anything else I can help with, you’ve got my number.“

She blamed Mia for being a ridiculously charming child.

She blamed all the other parents for making Kasius seem so refreshingly nice by comparison.

She blamed Kasius for having far too blue eyes and a far too sweet smile.

She blamed herself for not getting laid in too long and regrettably having a thing for guys like him.

She could only hope he didn’t actually take her up on the idiotic offer. She could hardly take it back now, with him looking so relieved.

* * *

He did take her up on the offer, under many apologies and bringing her gift cards that she tried to refuse - his abashed smile made that impossible, even if she didn’t think she’d even done a lot. She’d just sorted out which activities and after-school care options would work for Mia, with her grandma less and less able to have her for the afternoon, and that was part of Sinara’s job, anyway. Kind of. Well, maybe she’d bent a few rules here and there but it wasn’t like it was any trouble. The school board wouldn’t even notice so long as the cheques kept coming.

Nothing she’d done was really out of the ordinary.

Until he was twenty minutes late for pick-up, which he never was, and it was just her and Mia left. Technically, he wasn’t even that late. The pick-up window was open another ten minutes. But he was always there as one of the first parents.

“Am I having dinner with you today?”Mia wanted to know, glancing to the door and then squinting at her wristwatch.“I think it’s almost time to eat.”

“I’m sure your unc- da - Kasius will be here any minute,”Sinara said.

Mia stilled varied wildly on what she called him. Sinara had no clue what she was supposed to go with herself.

Just then, Sinara’s phone started buzzing.

“My car’s dead!”Kasius basically yelled the moment she picked up.

She moved the phone further from her ear.“Hello to you too.”

“Right, sorry, hi,”he said, going on without pause and almost tripping over his words,“I won’t make it in time, my car won’t start, I only just walked far enough to get service -”

“I can wait with her,”Sinara offered.

“Thank you.” He sounded awfully choked up.“It’s just - our social worker’s coming over and I won’t make it to school and back anywhere near on time. I don’t want her to think I’m a total mess. They were already hesitant since no one had noticed how quickly Celia - Mia’s gran - had been declining and - I don’t want to lose her. If they take her and put her in the system-”

“Can you make it home on time?”she asked.

“I think so,”he said. It sounded like a question.“But what good would that do?”

“Alright.” This was so not part of her job.“Just get home. Give me your adress. I’m bringing Mia.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,”Kasius stammered.

“You didn’t, I offered. Text me your adress.”

And she hung up before he could argue with her.

* * *

Sinara borrowed a car seat of the rather bewildered middle school science teacher, Simmons, who luckily kept her eldest son’s as a spare and had the good grace not to ask follow-up questions to Mia’s happy announcement of,“Uncle Daddy’s car stopped and we’re going home for dinner. The engine is bad. Maybe we’ll ground it.”

Sinara glanced at her phone to make sure she had the right house number when turning into the street. There was a text from Kasius.  _ Thanks a million, getting dinner ready now, hope you’ll have some? _

Seemed he had made it on time.

So had Sinara and Mia, but only just. Mia was just showing off her own key and unlocking the door when a woman stepped up next to them.

She greeted the child, then introduced herself to Sinara with a small frown.

“Sinara Smith, hi,”she said and offered her hand, hoping that would be enough.

“She took me home from school because Daddy was having car troubles,”Mia said and opened the door, jabbing the button to call the elevator.

“Your uncle, sweetheart,”the social worker corrected.

Mia pouted.“My Grammy Mama says that your daddy and your mama are the people who take care of you and love you and make you eat your peas, even if they’re gross. She says it doesn’t matter about using your lentils.”

“You should eat peas but not lentils?”the social worker asked.

Sinara was rather unclear on whatever Mia meant herself. The condescending tone she could have done without, though.

“Your lentils,”Mia said slowly. She gestured at her crotch.“For making babies.”

Sinara managed not to laugh.“Do you mean genitals, sweetie?”

“Maybe.”

The elevator opened and Mia ran out, towards what Sinara figured was the kitchen - because of course they had the penthouse with the elevator right to the living room.

“Daddy, are the vagina and the penis,” a short pause, then very carefully enunciated,“genitals?”

This time she couldn’t help but laugh.

Kasius walked out of the kitchen, Mia on his hip. His smile dulled when he spotted the social worker but he quickly regained himself.

He set Mia down.“Why don’t you go wash up? Dinner’s almost ready.”

She scampered off and he turned to the social worker.“Sorry. I had a bit of a car problem so we are a smidge behind. I thought we’d have dinner sorted before you arrived. I’m so embarrassed-”

“Don’t worry,”she waved him off,“The situation was handled. You had your girlfriend to pick her up.”

Sinara stared at Kasius. He was blushing about as badly as she probably was. Before either of them could correct the woman, she added,“I’m so glad Mia has a maternal influence around, that was worrying me, to tell you the truth.”

Kasius’ mouth moved. No words came out. He looked terrified.

“I get along great with her,”Sinara said.“She’s such a sweet kid.”

_ Thank you, _ Kasius mouthed to her as they headed to the dining room.

She had an inkling there would be yet another gift card in her near future.

She really needed to figure out how to get him to stop that. It wasn’t really appropriate.

Though admittedly less inappropriate than her pretending to be his girlfriend, even if only by lies of omission and carefully distracting Mia throughout dinner. But one dinner worth of faking it couldn’t possibly hurt.

* * *

One dinner spiraled into two, into tagging along to the park, into taking pictures to put up around his flat, into making the headmistress aware of the alleged situation because Mia had settled on calling her Auntie Nara now and could not be convinced to do anything else any longer.

Somehow Sinara thought she really ought to mind spending her weekend with a student and her guardian, just because the social worker would be back on Monday and sure to ask what they’d been up to and they didn’t want to make Mia lie about the situation. Instead, she was content to stroll around the park, Mia holding on to their hands, swinging her up between them occasionally.

Kasius bought ice cream and they sat by the pond until Mia couldn’t stop fidgeting.

“You still have a whole scoop left,”Kasius pointed out.“Are you sure you want to risk walking?”

“I won’t drop it,”Mia said. She got up and turned to the path leading to the playground, then froze and frowned.“I can’t hold both your hands now.”

She’d taken the rule to keep a hold as not to get lost to be meant for everyone, not just for her.

“It’s fine,”Sinara started.

“Okay.” Mia pushed her slightly sticky hand into Sinara’s.“You can just hold Daddy’s hand. Then he won’t get lost. Right, Auntie Nara?”

She was just too adorable to say no to.

With a shrug and an abashed smile, Sinara offered Kasius her hand. He didn’t even hesitate before taking it.

Their hands fit together far too well.

* * *

Sinara was ecstatic for Mia; the little girl was basically bouncing off the walls ever since she’d understood that she was being formally adopted that day.

It was what they’d been working towards and Sinara was happy for Mia, and for Kasius. Of course she was happy.

She was not at all disappointed that their ruse could end now. She wasn’t begrudging a damn six-year-old a stable home with a loving father over movie nights, hand holding that felt like coming home, coffee dates, and the occasional kiss that almost, almost could mean something.

That would be selfish. Not to mention ridiculous.

Of course she was happy.

Except that she also was the tiniest bit upset. She’d let herself get attached. She didn’t want it to be over.

But then they were leaving the courthouse and Mia was saying,“Daddy can pick the dinner and you can pick the movie, Auntie Nara, I just wanna pick dessert! And snacks!”

And Kasius put his arm around her waist like he’d done so often lately, and there was a question in his eyes this time.

She answered it with her hand on his and told Mia,“I want to see Tangled again.”

She really, really didn’t - but Mia did, and that mattered so much more.

“And how about lasagna?”Kasius said, picking Mia’s current favourite food, and kissed Sinara’s temple.

* * *

Sinara had a lease that was almost running out, half of Kasius’ closet space, and Mia curled up against her side for movie night.

They probably ought to have a talk to clear up just where they stood and where this relationship - that had decidedly stopped being fake - was going but Sinara was content with things the way they were. No point in muddling things up with asking questions.

Which was easier said than done with a chatterbox kid who asked, asked, asked all day long.

She’d been suspiciously quiet for a while now, staring at Sinara rather than the movie, so it was no surprise when she broke the silence with a question.

“Are you my mama now?”she asked.

The hope in her eyes made Sinara’s stomach clench and her heart skip a beat. She snuck a glance at Kasius but he was watching her with the same rapt attention as Mia.

“If you want me to be,”Sinara said.

“Okay,”Mia said, snuggling closer into her side.“Can you rewind, Mama? I missed Elsa’s song.”

Maybe clearing things up wasn’t all that bad, actually.


End file.
